Pow Wow

I haven’t seem to run into a lot of luck with Mexican food lately. I do not like to feel like a trapped burrito when I leave a food establishment, nor do I want to have to rush home and insist ‘I’m just busy’ to my fellow diner. While enjoying a sorry excuse for Mexican food this last week, I recounted to the table one of my (un)equally rough Mexi experiences in college.

Sophomore year of college (yes, this seems to be where I gathered a lot of my momentum) I was being pursued by the nicest guy. The nice guy, to be exact. But the problem is cyclical with this character–almost always–and the truth is that no girl is ever attracted to the guy who is taking her out on his first date. So, I befuddled myself in the middle of a situation that involved me getting picked up in his car and having dinner at a Mexican restaurant. All throughout the dinner, I felt so badly because I recognized this as a genuine step towards dating while I knew I wasn’t the girl for this guy. So after we finished dinner and he drove me home, he began broaching the topic I was inevitably avoiding.

I began to feel my stomach rumble and decided I had to get a move on this train. I announced that we needed to have a ‘pow wow’ about all of this. I did get a fairly odd look from him about my word choice. I spilled that I didn’t feel the same way but that he was, indeed, a nice guy. I exited the car only to go inside feeling physically and mentally down. I proceeded to experience what I now know is food poisoning for the next 20 hours. I’ve always wondered if that was a sign…something along the lines of ‘shame on you for even going on this date.’ But I think we were both left with the battle scars. I contacted him the next morning (against my judgement, but for medicinal purposes) only to find that ‘umm, ya,’ he had also shared the same terror the whole night before.

Some pow wow’s don’t mess around. Lesson to all: say what you have to say and get out. Don’t stick around for the food!